With the explosive growth and popularity of computer games and Internet interaction, the use of images, especially images of objects such as animated characters, are becoming more prominent. Animated characters are commonly used in computer games to represent either the player or other various components of the game. Likewise, there are also numerous potential uses of an animatable character for use with Internet interaction. For example, an animated character could represent a user in a chat room on the Internet to provide more interactivity than conventional chat rooms. Another example is a community “room” where a character, used as a visual representation of a user, can roam and explore various parts of the community “room”.
Typically, these objects, such as animatable characters, are laboriously created by a computer programmer through the use of codes which are typically too complex for the average user to utilize. Characters are often crafted by an artist and entered into a computer. Accordingly, these animatable objects and characters are typically predetermined and is normally not easily customized by the user. Additionally, conventional character generation and animation methods typically do not facilitate approximate real-time customized interaction with a predetermined environment or between two customized animatable characters. For instance, using conventional methods, it would be extremely difficult and expensive for each game player to use a customized animatable character in a real-time game. Conventional animation methods typically utilize a series of static images with very minor changes to simulate motion. Using this conventional technique, it would be extremely difficult and costly to generate a series of static images immediately after a motion command is received such that approximate real-time game playing is feasible. Alternatively, a predetermined sequence of motions can be pre-programmed. However, motions pre-programmed by a programmer are highly labor intensive and could severely limit motion and reaction by the animated object. Likewise, similar problems occur in Internet interaction between animatable characters under the control of users.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for quickly and effectively generating a customized animatable character in a computer system. The present invention addresses such a need.